


I’m seeing this thing through

by callmelyss



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Darth Tantrum and his Evil Space Ginger, Hux Quits, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mostly so he can go sleep, Post-TLJ, Power Dynamics, The Author Regrets Everything, these assholes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-18 19:29:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13688259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmelyss/pseuds/callmelyss
Summary: Hux tells himself he isn’t surprised to see the shuttle’s cargo bay is open, or to see the all-too-familiar figure in black (still helmet-less) standing just inside, arms folded across his chest, and in a way, he isn’t.Deal with Ren’s inevitable interferenceis always point 16a or 17b on any protocol he’s established in the last six years. So he does what he always does where Ren is concerned: he takes a deep breath through his nose and soldiers on.“What are you doing,” Ren asks when he’s close enough. Or doesn’t ask exactly. It’s not a question.“What does it fucking look like I’m doing,” Hux replies.





	I’m seeing this thing through

Hux has a protocol for this, as for everything. Or—close enough. Technically, he’s building off his contingency plans for a wide-scale mutiny, because _Ren becomes Supreme Leader and ruins fucking everything_ is more of a nightmare than an eventuality he ever wanted to consider at length.

Although he should have.

The long, hot shower isn’t part of the protocol, more just something he desperately needs—to wash away the ashes of the _Supremacy_ and the stale sweat from Crait and everything in between. He takes the time, too, to apply ointment to the bruising around his neck and along his torso, an almost impressive mottling of reds and purples that runs from one sharp shoulder blade to the top of his hip. No broken ribs, per the medical scan. He supposes he should be grateful. This would be harder with a punctured lung (and Hux should know).

No time to think about that now. About the repetition of it—inevitable, it seems, as entropy. That he should be knocked onto the floor. Again. The stars spin and die. He falls. Again. Again.

He dresses in non-regulation black pants, looser than his uniform slacks and covered in pockets. His shirt, likewise black and tightly knit, also allows more movement than he’s used to, and he twists a little in the uneasy freedom of it, wanting to test its limits. The boots are heavy but short. Made, he imagines, for climbing catwalks and walking on unfamiliar terrain. What he needs now. He straps a blaster around his hips as the final touch. _Almost ready_.

There’s a duffel under the false bottom of his closet, already packed with other necessities: more clothes, several thousand credits, a second blaster, new ident papers, two weeks’ worth of ration bars, tabs for water purification, a medkit, a private data pad, a bottle of whiskey, and other sundries. 

Fortune favors the prepared, his father always said. Almost certainly Brendol had his own exit strategies in place, should he have knowingly come under the threat. Funny that he died thinking he was still safe, but Hux suspects most people do.

He knows that he's not--if he's ever been.

He leaves his dogtags next to the letters he wrote earlier this evening. There’s one for Morales, his second-in-command, and another for Rae Sloane, which may never reach her hands. Still, he owes her, if anyone, his explanation. Otherwise, he leaves the rooms as they always are: his uniforms hanging neatly in the closet, hats on the shelf above, his desk orderly as ever, everything quiet and pristine and in its proper place. He’s taking nothing that really belongs to the Order; everything in the bag he purchased with his own funds, if not legally then at least personally.

There is the matter of his coat. 

He shouldn’t bother with it, certainly shouldn’t take the time to carefully sever the threads binding the First Order insignia to the sleeve or the stripes to the cuffs. _Sentiment_ , something in him sneers, but he does it anyway, leaves the stripes and the patch next to his tags. Pulls the coat around his shoulders. Gives one last look at what’s been his home the past few years. Strides out the door, bag in hand.

—

When he developed this particular protocol, in the unlikely event he would abandon the _Finalizer_ , Hux considered it a liability, how far he’d docked the shuttle—out of the way in Hangar F—from his personal quarters and the bridge. Now he’s grateful for it, the long walk through his ship, the last time he’ll ever pace its immense corridors. It’s quiet, just after 0200, and he only encounters the occasional patrol; they scurry out of the way as soon as they spot his familiar silhouette approaching. (Perhaps the coat is serving a practical purpose after all.) There’s no one, therefore, to see his hand drift along the wall as he passes, trying to memorize the feel of _this_ durasteel, _these_ consoles, _those_ panels with his fingertips.

Stupid to want to memorize a ship, to cram it wholesale into his head, and that when he knows it better than anyone already. Deranged to want to _apologize_ to one, but he does, touching the lift controls with regret. He thought he would be running for his life, if it ever came to abandoning the _Finalizer_ , no time for this sort of heartbreak. (He _is_ running for his life, he reminds himself—just less literally than he expected.)

The shuttle is an old _Lambda_ -class T-4a he saved from decommissioning years ago. He didn’t have this particular plan in mind when he acquired it, only knew it was prudent to have a craft at his personal disposal. He’s added upgrades over the years, and supplies, once he determined it would function as a suitable parachute if the time came. It’s parked in a dusty corner of Hangar F, which is mostly used as a maintenance space to recycle badly damaged tie-fighters. It’s utterly abandoned this time of night; even the hangar droids are tucked away, recharging.

Hux tells himself he isn’t surprised to see the shuttle’s cargo bay is open, or to see the all-too-familiar figure in black (still helmet-less) standing just inside, arms folded across his chest, and in a way, he isn’t. _Deal with Ren’s inevitable_ _interference_ is always point 16a or 17b on any protocol he’s established in the last six years. So he does what he always does where Ren is concerned: he takes a deep breath through his nose and soldiers on.

“What are you doing,” Ren asks when he’s close enough. Or doesn’t ask exactly. It’s not a question.

“What does it fucking look like I’m doing,” Hux replies. He shuffles his bag on his shoulder. It’s an unutterable relief, not having to add _Supreme_ _Leader_ now. He’s no longer a General and Ren isn’t his master (not that he ever was). He moves to board the craft.

Ren narrows his eyes; his arms tighten across his chest, and then he’s stepping into Hux’s path. Of course. “Like you’re putting your tail between your legs.”

Hux glares up at him—the height difference is more pronounced thanks to the incline of the boarding ramp. He hates it. “Get out of my way.”

“No.” Those dark eyes glitter at him. Only the promise of more violence there.

But this, too, is to be expected. Hux moves to shove past Ren and bares his teeth when a hand closes around his bicep. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

Ren lets him go. For the moment. Hux stalks into the shuttle, pausing only to secure his bag in a side compartment before proceeding to the cockpit. Regrettably, it’s been some time since he’s been able to run diagnostics on this ship, so he’ll have to do that before takeoff. That and deal with the arsehole who’s now lurking in the cargo bay.

“This is cowardly,” Ren is saying. “Even for you.”

It doesn’t sting, not anymore. They’re well past the point of hiding what they think about each other. There had been a time, briefly, when the embers of something else, something less overtly hostile and more personally intriguing, floated between them, but they suffocated easily under the weight of Snoke and Starkiller and Ren’s absurdity and Hux’s increasing exhaustion. 

(He’s going to a rest planet first, he decides—one of those places where no one has a last name—and he’s just going to sleep for a week, maybe a month if he can. He’s so fucking tired he can barely see straight.)

He doesn’t owe Ren an explanation. “The noblest beings still have a sense of self-preservation,” he says anyway. “Even your Jedi, I’m sure.”

This is obvious bait, but for once Ren ignores it. “You know the penalty for desertion,” he growls instead. Closer now. A tingle of electricity in the air. Maybe the Force. Maybe just static from all that fucking wool he wears.

A threat. Typical. “I do,” Hux keeps his voice light. He’s tapping a few controls, reviewing the hyperdrive’s functionality, deliberately not looking back at the dark figure in the doorway. “I wrote it. But I resigned—I cc’ed you on the message. It’s not desertion if there’s bureaucracy, Ren.”

It’s quiet as Ren weighs this. Hux knows for a fact that he’s never read a fucking memo, let alone any of the manuals or protocols he’s written. For all Ren knows, Hux can flee in the middle of the night, throw himself a fucking parade, and turn the _Finalizer_ into a hardcore party ship if he wants to.

“Theft, then,” Ren tries, sounding sulky now. “You’re stealing First Order property. Our property— _my_ property _.”_

This is so ridiculous Hux spins around in the pilot’s chair. “What _property_?” he demands, incredulous. “The shuttle is mine—legally. So is this.” He puts a hand on his blaster, a warning as much as anything. “Nothing here belongs to the Order or _you_.”

Ren gives him a pointed look. Hux flushes, thinking that he means the coat he couldn’t bear to leave behind, but it turns out it’s worse than that. The bastard’s looking at _him_.

“Fuck you, Ren,” he mutters and turns away. Diagnostic 25% complete. He checks the nav computer, trying to think of coordinates, but it’s hard to think with that stare stabbing him between the shoulder blades.

“What will your people say?” A new strategy. Tentative, poking at Hux’s loyalties, if he has them. (He’s quite certain Ren thinks he doesn’t.)

“‘Good on Hux, he got out before that shady fucker in the mask could finish him off. Alas, if only we could do the same.’” He flashes his teeth back at Ren and goes on. “‘I wonder what’s on in the mess today. Hope it’s not that gray glop again. Oh wait, it always is. Long live the Order and the Supreme Leader, etc., etc.’”

Quiet again. Then: “I. I don’t wear a mask anymore.” Like maybe Hux hasn’t noticed.

“Yes,” he agrees. “And who knew that would have such an adverse effect on your already dismal personality.”

“I’m not going to. Finish you off. Kill you,” Ren tries. He’s keeping a little distant, leaving room, but it still feels like there isn’t enough air in here for the both of them. (And isn’t that the point?)

“Ren,” he says. His voice feels heavy. He’s so fucking tired, he could put his head down here. “We both know this ends with my knife in your ribs and your hands on my throat. It can’t go any other way.”

It’s true, he had considered once that it might. That if he could pull Ren close enough, they could both step out from under Snoke’s shadow and do this their own way and not spend the rest of their lives circling each other and snarling. But it never came to much: a few stolen kisses in abandoned corridors. A sloppy blowjob in a maintenance closet, Ren twitching under him, those big hands cradling his head, stunningly careful. Murmured confessions in Hux’s bedroom, doubts, first names, that sort of thing. But it was too weak to survive their inherent distrust of one another and for the best that it didn’t. It makes this easier now.

“That never bothered you before.” The circling, he realizes, Ren means. The snarling. The knife.

“Well, before you hadn’t strangled me with the Force twenty paces from our master’s freshly dismembered body. Which. The girl, Ren? Honestly. How stupid do you think I am? There were enough guards in that room to slaughter a bloody rathtar.”

“I wasn’t going to kill you,” Ren mutters. Not addressing that other point—he probably won’t ever—or offering his usual assessments of Hux’s intelligence. “Not like you. Were going to do to me, I mean.”

Hux’s hands still on the console. He supposes it wouldn’t be fair for him to get away clean without having this particular conversation. Or, at least, he’s not that lucky. He never has been. “Ah. Noticed, did you?”

“Of course I fucking _noticed_. So. Why didn’t you?”

The truth is he’s been wondering that himself. Replaying the memory. Ren was unconscious. Prone. Smoking wreckage all around. Snoke’s body lying in two pieces. Nothing to mourn there—Hux’s humiliation from their earlier altercations still fresh and oozing. He had his blaster in his hand, his finger on the trigger. It would have been so easy. Should have been. Even when Ren twitched, he still had time. A half-conscious Force-user couldn’t stop a shot from that range.

Hux shakes his head. “I don’t know why.” Turning, seeing Ren’s skeptical look, he glowers. “I don’t! Moment of indecision. Exhaustion. Fear, maybe. That shouldn’t be hard for you to believe. I don’t get my hands dirty, right? Hux, the coward, hiding behind his schematics and his simulations and his clearly-overcompensating-for-something superweapon. Couldn’t even kill his most hated rival when the time came. What a fucking failure.”

Ren tilts his head—as if he’s considering this outburst seriously. No, wait, of course, he is, he’s Ren. “You’ve killed others. Personally, I mean. Not with Starkiller.” Like this is a revelation to Hux or would be to anyone.

He makes an exasperated noise, despite himself. “Of course, I have, Ren, I’m the youngest General in Imperial history. Or I was.”

“So why, Hux? Why not kill me, too?”

He shouldn’t get to his feet, shouldn’t stomp within grabbing distance of this unstable lunatic ( _not that it matters_ , something cringes, _he can hurt you from across a room_ ), shouldn't stick his face close to Ren’s and hiss, “ _I don’t know_.” But he does.

There’s a moment when their eyes are inches apart, that Hux thinks Ren is going to do something. Touch him, maybe. Choke him again, probably. His hand lifts, hovers between them, but then it drops again to his side.

That shouldn’t make Hux miserable, and Ren shouldn’t have the fucking _gall_ to look just as gutted as he feels, but he does, they both do. Hux scrubs his hands over his face ( _tired_ ) and turns away, back to the console. Diagnostic 50% complete.

“You should promote Morales. She knows the _Finalizer_ almost as well as I do.” Hux says, speaking mostly to the glass and metal in front of him. “Don’t let the Admirals talk you into Havellin. He fucks too many of the lieutenants and he’s a lazy strategist.”

“What if I promoted you?” Ren asks. His voice is soft. Hesitant. “Grand Marshal Hux has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

It’s all he’s ever wanted since he graduated the Academy, since he accepted the rungs of this ladder were the only ones for him to climb and it was foolish to think otherwise. And if he had to climb them, he was going to reach the top or die trying. “Don’t offer me that,” he tells Ren. _Offer me something better_ , he doesn’t say. He doesn’t know what that would be or how he could trust it. His side hurts, where it makes contact with the pilot’s seat. He may need an analgesic. 

For some reason, this refusal annoys Ren more than the others. Possibly it was his trump card. “Where will you even _go_?” he demands, voice angry. Raw without the vocoder. It’s still odd to hear it unmodified.

Hux shrugs. He’s not going to share any of his musings on the subject. And something much crueler occurs to him instead: “Maybe I should join up with your mother’s Resistance. See how the other half lives for a while. I’ve always wanted to have a look inside that ugly ship you hate so much.”

He winces when he hears flesh hitting metal behind him, although he’s still pleased he landed a blow, that he still _can_ land a blow. He was starting to worry he'd lost his touch. (And at least it’s not the lightsaber. He has to fly away in this shuttle, after all.)

“That wasn’t funny,” Ren snarls. He spins the pilot’s chair around so Hux has to face him. “You’re not a traitor.”

Not like FN-2187, that is to say. Or maybe Ren is thinking about someone else. The girl, perhaps. He’s often thinking about the girl these days, Hux can tell. 

(Another reason to go—before that blows up in their faces more than it already has.)

He tilts his chin up to look Ren in the eye. “No, I’m not a fucking traitor, Ren.” _But you might be_.

Ren glares down at him, dark hair hanging around that so-distinctive face, now all the more so with the dramatic half-healed scar. “Just a fucking deserter.”

“You’ve said that already,” Hux points out mildly, ignoring the clear intimidation attempt. “And why should you care? We don’t—the Order doesn’t matter to you. My presence certainly won’t make a difference in your mystical battle between good and evil or whatever it is. If anything, your life will be easier without me second-guessing every order you give. Morales will follow them. She’s a good soldier and she probably only hates you on a professional level.”

It has always been personal between the two of them. Even before their unfortunate fumblings. Snoke made sure of that. Kept them competitive, at odds, as much as possible. Not a leadership style Hux tries to emulate. He rewards good work, punishes negligence. Politics get in the way on occasion, of course (ugh, Havellin) but he’s always pushed for meritocracy when he can. He’ll miss that, the structure of it, the inherent organization, the _sense_ everything makes—or made. The last few days have left him dizzy. The upheaval of it all.

Ren is staring, and Hux can’t figure out why, what he might have said to make him look like that, foundering and lost while still looming over him. He almost (almost) reaches up to touch Ren’s face. He wants to drag his thumb down the scar. Maybe press to see if it still hurts. (Or maybe not. Maybe just touch it. Him.) His hand moves of its own accord before he snatches it back.

Ren’s expression darkens again. “I could _make_ you stay,” he says. Sounding petulant. A child who doesn’t understand why a playmate won’t stick around after he’s been bitten. (Twice. Or countless times.)

Hux laughs. Nastily. He can’t help it. “Yes, I suppose, you could. But you’d have a kind of puppet, then, wouldn’t you? Enthralled by the Force, not you.” 

Ren pushes away from him, sending the chair spinning so that Hux has to brace himself against the console. He brings up the starcharts, not really looking for a destination. Doesn’t want Ren in the room when he decides where to go. He knows all about the mindreading—has seen the worst of it in action during interrogations—and doesn’t consider himself exempt from Ren’s invasions. Although, he must not be able to see _everything_ _always_ , or Hux would be quite dead already.

“It’s not like that,” Ren mumbles behind him. “I get images mostly. Some thoughts. Unless I’m trying.”

“Ah,” Hux says, mostly because he can’t think of anything else. “Are you trying now?”

“Not really. But. You were thinking about—us. Before.” Ren shrugs when Hux turns to look at him. He’s leaning in the doorway, arms crossed again. Defensive. Hunched. Smaller that way. “It’s hard to miss when someone is thinking _about you_. Especially. Like that.”

“Understandable.” He wants to return to preparing the shuttle. Wants to set a course. Wants Ren to leave. Also doesn’t. (Fuck.)

“What if I asked?” Ren tries after another lingering silence, only the thrum of machinery to fill the quiet. “What if I _asked_ you to stay?”

“I—“ Hux doesn’t get a chance to answer before Ren’s moving toward him, a little too fast for his comfort and his hand goes to his blaster before he understands Ren is sinking to his knees in front of him.

“What if I begged?” he whispers, looking up into Hux’s face, his hands going to his thighs. Rubbing them. As if it was at all unclear what sort of begging he means to do.

Hux allows himself a moment to picture the precise nature of said supplication—Ren on his knees, gagging on his cock while Hux fucks his stupid mouth that keeps saying such _bloody stupid_ things much too late to do any good, and his hands tangle in that _ridiculous_ hair while tears run down Ren’s face until Hux comes all over it.

That image must come through loud and clear to Ren, because he’s surging forward, saying, “Yes _,_ fuck yes, _that_ ,” in a way that’s entirely too breathy, too _eager_ , and pawing at Hux’s zipper, face practically pressed into his crotch before he can even react.

“Wait, what,” Hux says, rattled and more than a little aroused, before annoyance flares helpfully to the surface. “No, _get off.”_ He plants one booted foot against Ren’s chest and kicks him backward. “This is absurd. You’re absurd. I’m _leaving_ , Ren. I have every reason to, and you have every reason to let me. Hells, what is _wrong_ with you?”

And of course, now there’s a great, hulking Sithlord—or whatever the fuck he is—curled up right in the middle of Hux’s escape plan with his face buried in his hands and moaning, “I don’t _know_. Everyone _leaves_ and I’m fucking sick of it, Hux, okay? Why can’t _someone_ just stay? Why can’t you?”

So it is about the girl. And Luke Skywalker. And probably his fucking mother to boot. What a fucked up family, Hux thinks, not for the first time. At least Brendol was straightforward. Subtle as a brick and an utter bastard, but straightforward. Plus, Hux got to arrange his murder. There’s catharsis for you.

Diagnostic, 75% complete.

Hux sighs. Straightforward. Fine. Then he can leave; then he can sleep. (Finally.) “I’m not going to be some sort of surrogate for your deep and abiding attachment issues,” he tells Ren. “You don’t get to ask that of me. Okay? You threw me into a fucking wall today.” 

“I apologize—”

“It doesn’t _matter.”_ He wants to shout this at him. Doesn’t. Quite. “You’re making this—whatever it is—into more than it ever was because you’re _lonely_. That void, or whatever she left you with. I can’t do anything about it. I never could. You know that. I’m as empty as you are. Emptier, maybe.” Ren obviously still has feelings. Wants. Needs. Meanwhile, he feels hollower in the wake of it all. Scraped out. Echoing.

Ren shakes his head, huffing something like a laugh, although it isn’t. “That’s not true. You want things. You want _me_. I felt it.”

“I want to _hurt_ you,” Hux corrects him. “Badly. It’s not the same thing.”

“But what if I want you to?” 

He blinks. “You don’t.”

“I do, though.” Ren shuffles forward again, more cautious after being literally kicked in the chest. His hands go to Hux’s knees, tilting them open. “Please. Use me like you want. And then…you can go. I won’t try to stop you, I swear it.”

He’s looking up through those dark, pointlessly long lashes at him, pleading. Like this isn’t an obvious trap. Like Hux really is that stupid.

He stares at Ren’s mouth, at that fat bottom lip, pinker and softer than it has any right to be, and curses. _Fuck me, I really am that stupid_.

“Fine,” Hux snarls, working his fly open. He’s half hard already, has been since Ren first went to his knees.

His cock’s barely out before Ren is on him again, his hands going to Hux’s hips and dragging him forward on the seat, Hux’s legs spreading wide to hook over those annoyingly broad shoulders while Ren laps eagerly— _gratefully_ (oh fuck)—at the head of his cock before swallowing him whole. He can’t stifle the shout that tears free of his throat or how he arches back against the pilot’s seat, calves clenching over Ren’s back as that perfect wet heat envelopes him and Ren bobs his head and fucking _swallows_ against his cock. He almost feels bad for the way his boots must be digging into his shoulders before he remembers he doesn’t _have_ to feel guilty— _use me like you want_ —and then Ren is leaning back to grin at him. “Yes,” he says, a little hoarsely now (understandable). “Exactly.”

“Shut _up_ ,” Hux says, sinking both hands into that thick hair and dragging him forward again—Ren makes a pleased _mmph_ —to fuck his face in earnest now, feeling more than a little wild at the noises Ren is making, sloppy and, yes, gagging, until Hux comes, too hard and too fast, down his throat and collapses back against the seat.

Equally satisfying is the way Ren slides off him gasping and coughing a little, although Hux feels slightly disappointed to see he’s swallowed everything. He had rather liked the look of his come on Ren’s face in that fantasy.

“I liked it, too. How it looked,” Ren rasps, leaning back on his hands and smiling. Admiring his handiwork, maybe, as Hux tries to catch his breath, softening cock flopped out of his pants, face flushed, legs splayed. 

“Oh fuck off,” Hux says and tucks himself away, refastening his fly. (There’s nothing he can do about his face, warm as it still is.) Then, his eyes flick to Ren’s crotch, the obvious bulge there. He maneuvers one foot between Ren’s legs, edging it forward until the toe of his boot _presses_ just slightly against Ren’s erection.

Ren groans. “Harder,” he begs.

It’s so much like an order that Hux doesn’t want to do it, but he enjoys the cracked sound of Ren’s voice enough that he complies, planting the heel firmly now and grinding the sole against him, rocking it in small circles. Ren’s head tilts back as he moans, the long line of his throat exposed, and Hux wants to lick it and bite it and draw his sharpest knife across it all at once.

“ _Please_ ,” Ren says.

Hux doesn’t exactly fall out of the chair, but he does fall onto Ren, not gracefully, straddling him, and nip at his throat, feeling Ren’s whimpers under his teeth. He bites him a little more sharply the second time, pleased at the way the red rushes to the surface, thinking of his own marks, the ones Ren left on the _Supremacy_ and Crait.

“I’m sorry,” Ren whispers.

Hux bites him harder for that, on the juncture between his neck and shoulder where his collar has pulled askew. “You should be,” he growls. He laps a little at the impression there—not an indistinguishable bruise but an actual circle left by his teeth—pleased at the result. Ren’s hands are on his hips again, not tightening, and he’s still hard under Hux, pressing just so against his arse.

He should leave him now, aching for this.

“You could.” Fuck, his voice sounds breathy. Hux might not hate hearing Ren talk so much, if he always sounded like that. (Or he might hate it more—he can’t tell. Can’t really think right now.) “You could leave me begging for relief. It would be more than fair, considering.”

“Don’t tell me what’s fair,” Hux warns him. He can feel Ren’s lungs expanding and contracting under his hands. If Ren tilted his face back up, they’d be inches apart. “Look at me.”

Ren obeys, his dark eyes searching Hux’s face as if there’s an answer there to a question he keeps asking himself. 

“Why did you come down here?” Hux asks. It’s important, he decides, to know that while he has him like this, wretched and wanting. Before whatever’s next.

“To stop you from going. To keep you—here.”

“Why?”

Ren frowns. Weighing his answers, maybe. Thinking, _didn’t we cover this?_ Wondering what Hux wants to hear. “I…it’s always been this. The two of us. Even when we hated each other—maybe especially then—there was that, at least. A counterbalance. And when I sensed you leaving, I thought…‘how fucking dare he?’ How could you leave me without even that. You’re _supposed_ to be here.” His expression hardens a little. “That’s how it’s always been,” he says again and shrugs, eyes flicking away.

_Supposed to be here to clean up your messes and take your punches_ , Hux wants to snarl. Resentful. (And still so tired.) “If I had suggested. Before. When we were—that we do something about Snoke, what would you have done?” 

“I don’t know.” Ren shakes his head at Hux’s expression. “I don’t, Hux. I didn’t really know what to make of you back then. I thought it might be a trick, a way to hurt me. And you went back to looking at me like I was something you scraped off your shoe before I knew what to think of it. Of you.”

He’s not sure what’s stranger: hearing Ren saying his name (three times now, like an invocation) or the idea that Ren had been…confused by what happened (and what hadn’t) between them.

“Maybe,” Ren’s saying now, softly. “Maybe if you had asked for my help. I might have.“

Hux is too tired, he thinks, to bring up the girl and what she asked from Ren. What he may have offered without demanding anything in return. And it’s clear enough, in its way, from where they are now, so maybe the specifics don’t matter. He sighs.

“I kept thinking about your hands,” Hux says. Because apparently this is happening, this _sharing_ thing. “In the throne room on the _Supremacy._ When I was going to shoot you,” he explains, when Ren looks confused. “Ridiculous, I know. We hadn’t—in over a year, and I’ve killed people I’ve fucked before. But your hands, how you used to.” _Touch me_. He coughs. “Anyway. That’s what it was. Just a stupid sense memory interfering at an inopportune moment. Probably the sleep deprivation. Did you know I’ve only gotten five hours since Starkiller?”

Ren looks like he’s about to say something, but Hux climbs off him before he can.

Diagnostic 100%. All systems functional.

“Right,” Hux says, leaning back against the console, palms braced on the edge. “This is what’s going to happen: if you’re interested—“ he glances down to confirm Ren is still hard, despite the lull and the pseudo-interrogation (but of course he is) “—we can fuck. Then you’re going to let me go on my merry way, as promised, the First Order is yours, woe betide her enemies, death to the Resistance, _ad nauseam_. What do you say?”

It’s answer enough, Hux supposes, that he’s now pressed back against the console, various knobs and buttons jamming into his spine, with Ren’s tongue in his mouth and his hands, _those_ hands, sliding under Hux’s shirt. Something chirps under him and he shoves Ren off of him. “Not _here_ ,” he hisses. “The hyperdrive is right there—are you _trying_ to send us through a star and destroy my ship all in one go?”

_Your ship_ , he should have said.

Ren just smirks, though, and Hux digs his hands into his hair again, walking them both back into the cargo bay (now closed—Ren must have done so earlier), while they bite at each other’s mouths and tug at various articles of clothing, disordering each other as much as they can. Hux presses Ren down onto one of the long passenger benches and crawls on top of him, dragging Ren’s tunic over his head once he’s done so. His own shirt is even easier to remove and they both shudder at the skin-to-skin contact, denied it maybe since the last time they did this--and then it had been so unsure, so tentative, neither wanting to expose themselves fully to the other, that it may not even count.

But now Hux knows exactly what the worst of Ren looks like, has felt it squeezing his own windpipe, and the reverse is probably true, too, all of that understanding too late to be especially useful to either of them, but they have it, for what it’s worth. They can proceed, knowing as they do, what they are and what they’ve done to each other. 

So he waves Ren off when he makes tender eyes at the extent of the damage darkening Hux’s side ( _enough with your bleating, you’re not really sorry_ ) and reaches to skirt his fingers down the edge of the bruises, so lightly it doesn’t even sting. Hux concentrates, again, on leaving his own marks, bitten and sucked into Ren’s neck, his chest, and his flat stomach. He drags his teeth against Ren’s already swollen lips, satisfied when he whimpers into his mouth. 

“What do you want?” Hux asks him, businesslike, as if he’s willing to take it under advisement.

“Want you to fuck me,” Ren says, staring up at him, pupils blown big and black. “You—never really did before.”

“Right then,” Hux shuffles off him to dig out the medkit from his bag and then the little packet of lube. Ren works his way out of his pants while he does so; he’s gloriously nude when Hux returns to him. He takes a lingering moment to appreciate the many miles of his naked skin, dotted here and there with those peculiar moles he has. (No time to bite them all. More’s the pity.)

“Here,” Hux says. He pushes Ren’s legs wide and crawls between them, dipping his shoulder under Ren’s knee and turning his head to kiss one trembling thigh. They never really _did_ do this, he remembers, as he reaches to open Ren up for the first time, circling with slippery fingers before pressing one in, feeling, as well as hearing, the moan that vibrates down Ren’s sternum. It’s a show in itself, Ren’s twitching, as Hux works his way in, curling and uncurling his finger—and then fingers—when he finds that right spot. He’s easily hard again by the time he reaches to slick himself and push into Ren.

As rough as he was and however much he wanted to hurt Ren before, Hux feels little inclination to it now, easing forward until he’s fully seated, pressing another kiss to Ren’s leg and then to his slack mouth. They stay like that for a long moment, Ren’s chest pushing up against Hux’s as they both breathe a little too shallowly, and Ren making small helpless noises against Hux’s teeth as Hux shifts inside him.

Had they found their way here before. Who knows what horrors they might have wrought.

Or--it doesn't matter now.

Eventually, of course, it’s too much and it can’t last anyway (none of it) and Hux begins to move in earnest, snapping his hips and finding a rhythm that has them both gasping. Ren is clutching at him, his voice cracking open on Hux’s name when Hux reaches between them to bring him off, the two of them moving and groaning until it’s over entirely too soon, Ren splattering his own stomach and Hux slumping over him, their foreheads pressed together.

“Fuck,” Hux says.

“Yes,” Ren agrees.

They linger in the aftermath, even after Hux slides free of Ren and collapses against his chest. It’s time to go, but he feels like he could fall asleep like this, much as he was dreaming of a real bed and an open window and a breeze and no schedules to follow and maybe even breakfast that didn’t come out of a tube. 

“That sounds nice,” Ren says, murmuring this into Hux’s damp hair. He keeps ghosting one hand down Hux’s back, the uninjured side.

“Quiet,” Hux grumbles into his chest. “No one asked you.”

After he’s slept, he can decide what to do—about the rest of it. Living, that is. He thinks he’d make a rather brilliant arms dealer. (He’s good at negotiating and he enjoys threatening people.) Although, more fun, maybe, to _build_ weapons, for which he has an obvious affinity. There are the usual lawless options, too. Bounty hunting, smuggling, spice dealing. But he’d rather not join a gang if he can help it.

Ren chuckles. “Why not? You’d be in charge after a week.”

“A week?” Hux scoffs, offended.

“Two days?”

“At most.”

He’ll need to change how he looks to avoid any Resistance entanglements. There’s hair dye in the bag he packed, dark brown, but it’ll probably come out muddy. There are procedures, too, to change one’s eye color, but he suspects he’ll need to do some more drastic to become unrecognizable. Or maybe he should just invest in a comfortable mask. 

“Can you recommend a good helmet manufacturer?” he asks Ren before he can offer more commentary on his own.

“I can’t tell if you’re joking.”

“Sounds like our dynamic,” Hux reflects. He sighs before sitting up, grumbles at the smear of come going tacky on his stomach. He’ll have to clean up later. He draws his pants back over his legs, refastens the blaster belt around his hips. Doesn’t bother with the shirt just yet.

“You could stay, you know,” Ren says. Still naked and sprawled. “I’m not saying you have to. I meant what I said before,” he adds quickly, noticing Hux’s look. “But you could. Or you could go and come back.”

Hux folds his arms, peering down at him. “Are you suggesting I take a vacation? See how I feel about things in the morning? Wait on my two weeks’ notice?”

“Maybe. Couldn’t hurt.”

He rubs his face. Sighs again. “I don’t think that’s how this works.” 

Ren muses, “I don’t think either of us really knows how this works. I’m not sure we ever did.” He shrugs and sits up, reaching for his clothes, heedless of the bodily fluids in and on him. Typical. “Do you?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore,” Hux admits. 

There’s something looser in the way Ren moves now, more at ease, and it shows in his face, too, and he’s practically fucking _smiling_ at this admission and where is the scowling terror of twelve hours ago, screaming orders and facing down not-really-there Jedi and tearing everything to pieces? (Is this really all it takes?) 

“If you figure it out, come back and tell me?” Ren suggests, not specifying whether he means “how this works” or the stream of questions running through Hux’s head. It’s probably both. He’s more or less rearranged himself, but there’s no hiding that well-fucked expression on his face. Post-coital Ren, of all things. What a surreal note to end on.

“Maybe I’ll send you a holo,” Hux says, wishing he would leave. Mostly. 

“ _Glad you’re not here_ ,” Ren laughs. “Something like that?”

He absolutely doesn’t want to smile, so he doesn’t, allowing only the smallest twitch of his lips instead. “Something like that.”

Ren advances on him then—and maybe stalking is the only way he knows _how_ to walk?—and takes Hux’s face in his hands, leaning in for one last wet kiss. “Don’t dye your hair,” he tells him seriously when he pulls back, those warm brown eyes locked with Hux’s blue ones until he rolls them. 

“Yes, sir,” Hux says. Deadpan.

He watches Ren go, noting with quiet satisfaction that he’s weaving slightly as he makes his way down the ramp and out of the shuttle’s little cargo bay. Then he closes it, not checking to see if there’s a dark figure in the hangar standing and watching _him_  leave. Instead, he heads to the cockpit. He’s never really had to do this. Figure out what comes next. Every step of his path has been predetermined, cut deep into some brittle black stone, no chance to slip sideways or crawl out of the maze after age four. An hour or so ago, he thinks he would have simply flung himself into the stars, hoping for anything better than this, his only thoughts of escape, of survival, of snapping the long cord tying him to this ship, this world, these people.

He’s still going to fling himself into the stars, he decides, settling into the pilot’s chair again, booting up the systems, preparing to launch. The shuttle rises up and floats out of the hangar easily, like it’s been ready and waiting to do this, to get him out of here. The hyperdrive is warming, calculating. He doesn’t know what’s out there for him, whether it’s just more of the usual brutal, scraping existence he’s always known, just elsewhere, just not in stark black and gray (accented with red). He’ll find out. 

There’s still nothing here for him, Hux is sure. Only the sleepless rage of the hunt, seeking an enemy who should be too weak to stand, but persists impossibly, despite everything. Only Ren’s mercurial passions, sane and accessible one moment, mad and deadly the next, and Hux waiting to be cradled or shattered and never knowing which will come. Only the memory of those careful, gentle hands and the knowledge that all this might have been different. If. If.

He has every reason to leave and so he will. But it’s not as untethered as he thought, blasting out into the galaxy, breaking with everything he’s ever known. The cord doesn't snap, not quite. Instead, he finds Ren’s buried something in him when he wasn’t looking. A thin line, stretching between him and the _Finalizer_. Not strong enough to pull him back against his will. But firm enough to help him find his way. 

Home. 

If he wishes.

**Author's Note:**

> I, um, tripped, and some of my post-TLJ Kylux feelings fell out? Please send help.
> 
> Also, hi. Very new here. Not sure what's happened to my brain.


End file.
